Frank Sandford - Retirement

Retirement

Before Shiloh was finally deserted in May, Sandford heard the heavenly direction to "Retire." For the remainder of his life, Sandford lived in seclusion near the village of Hobart, New York in the Catskill Mountains. He prayed, farmed, raised sheep, studied astronomy, taught small groups, and gradually regathered his scattered followers into centers in different parts of the country. Messages were delivered to the faithful by a smaller inner circle.

Sandford continued to be supported by the tithes of his followers, and his retirement was "satisfying and serene," although his papers and books were twice destroyed in house fires. To some degree Sandford relaxed his earlier rhetoric. On New Year's Eve, 1941, he received a message from God to "remit the sins of each and every person that has been baptized since October 1, 1901." But he never renounced his claim to be Elijah; nor did he ever express remorse for those who had died on the Coronet thirty years earlier.

Sandford's death on March 4, 1948 was quiet and peaceful. His funeral and internment, however, were hasty and secretive. The news of his death was not released to the press for six weeks. Sandford had, of course, not died as Elijah in Jerusalem, but as an unheralded inhabitant of a Catskill village.